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Who doesn’t love an excellent dinner prepared with great skill from first-rate ingredients? But to appreciate it even more, just catch a glimpse of the complicated journey made by all those ingredients from the field to your plate. At the UW Club’s Farm to Table dinner, we got just that chance, to see our meal through the eyes of the family that raised our lamb and the family that made our wines. An eye-opener!

Paulette Lefever and her two kids Madison and Conor sketched a picture of life on the Lefever Holbrook Ranch: raising not just lambs but pigs, turkeys, ducks, rabbits, and more; growing vegetables for sale; running a bakery; running a catering operation; and just cultivating as many varied revenue streams as possible, to get the most out of their land and to hedge their bets against losses.

Paulette explained that when you are working with 1% profit margins, pretty much everything is a threat, and you deal constantly with the tradeoffs and unintended consequences of “competing goods.” For example, we all value biological diversity and the protection of indigenous wildlife. And we all value humanely raised, naturally pastured farm stock. But guess what happens when that indigenous wildlife is a wolf, and the farm animal out there in the pasture up on the butte is a lamb. It turns out that I’m not the only one who loves leg of lamb. But even in the face of all the challenges, it was clear that Paulette, Madison, and Conor are committed to the choices they have made—humane ranching and the best stewardship of their land. And the quality of the result was evident right there on our plates!

We also heard from Takashi Atkins, the owner of Waving Tree Winery, just down the road from Paulette’s ranch. He contrasted his family’s small-winery approach to that of the larger players: not “I know you are going to love this” but “how does it taste to you? Tell me what you think!” Waving Tree produces small quantities and really values engaging in a dialog with customers about how the wines are working for them. And the ones he brought for us were working very well indeed!

But now on to that meal. The first course, sliced lamb sirloin crostini with caramelized onions and fig relish, was so appealing that I forgot myself and ate it up before I took a picture for you! So you have to trust me on this: a succulent curl of lamb with sweet onions and small quartered figs nestled together on an oval of lightly toasted chewy baguette. With it, we had Waving Tree’s 2007 Grenache, a rich red with (according to the owner of a better palate than mine!) notes of cherry, dark chocolate, and caramel. Great start!

Next up, a lovely salad with spring peas, house-made ricotta, and red peppers in vinaigrette. Fresh tender salad with peas straight out of the pod! But the big surprise for this course was the wine—a sweet (but not too sweet) 2011 Sangiovese rosé. I liked it so much that I bought a couple of bottles and opened one at home on Sunday evening. The mystery of pairings!—It was still very good, but just not as striking with my asparagus-chevre omelette. But then on Monday it went really well with a hot stir-fry of my snow peas with red peppers in sesame oil. Go figure.

So! Now on to the main event—the leg of lamb. I have to quote the menu: “nicoise olive tapenade rubbed leg of lamb stuffed with seasoned house-ground lamb served with a garlic lemon zest au jus.” The earthy duet of olives and lamb was balanced by the lemon, and the ground lamb stuffing was really unusual—don’t picture hamburger!—Closer to a smooth paté or dense mousse. Yes, there was a small salad there on the plate too—field greens in a vinaigrette with cute baby carrots cut lengthwise—and some roasted small potatoes, and a dab of kale, all lovely. But the lamb au jus!—To die for. We had a 2008 Barbera with it, which had the body and complexity to hold its own very nicely with the rich lamb.

Dessert? A fresh fruit Napoleon with a little scoop of sorbet, very refreshing! And it was paired with the 2011 Muscat Canelli, a sweet white wine perfect with the fruit and berries.

Another excellent meal from UW Club manager Alex Chordas, executive chef Jon Maley, sous chef Jeff Soper, and chef Mike Hoffman! I’ll have more to say in upcoming posts about Paulette, Madison, and Conor and the Lefever Holbrook ranch; stay tuned! And if you’d like to sample Takashi’s Waving Tree wines, visit the website or the tasting room in Kirkland (11901 124th Ave. NE;425-820-0102).

I’ve been raving for some time now about Goldendale rancher Paulette Lefever and her kids Madison and Conor. Now’s your chance to meet them and feast on Paulette’s succulent grass-fed, hand-raised lamb! This Saturday June 16th, the UW Club is hosting a Slow Food dinner featuring lamb from the Lefever/Holbrook Ranch and wine pairings from the Waving Tree Winery, a small winery in Klickitat County down the road from the ranch.The UW Club’s fantastic chef Jon Maley and his staff have built a beautiful menu to showcase the products from these two Washington food artisans.

As I write this, I’m sitting in a house filled with the aromas of a lamb shoulder roast I got from Paulette slow-roasting in a thicket of rosemary sprigs and cloves of garlic. Two more hours before I can eat!—I’d like to go in there right now and swallow the meat, the pan, and the oven all together. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this chance to savor this beautiful lamb!

Not a member of the UW Club?–No worries! For this event, club manager Alex Chordas tells me that non-members are welcome to attend. (You can pay in cash when you get there. Note!—No credit cards.) Don’t miss it!—And if you’d like to sit at my table, let me know—Alex will make sure we make up a “party” (this will not be a hard task . . .).

Paulette tells me that “one of the best experiences for someone in food production is to share with others the fruits of their labor.” She and the Waving Tree folks are looking forward to sitting down to a great meal with you and a roomful of like-minded people.

Stats: Saturday June 16th, $50+tax, starts at 6:00 pm, UW Club on the University of Washington campus. Call 206-543-0437 to make a reservation. I hope to see you there!

Here’s the blurb and menu, shamelessly copied from the UW Club website:

Lefever/Holbrook Ranch and Waving Tree Winery

This is a very special evening about Slow Food. Grazed on native dry land hills and pastures of Lorena Butte in Klickitat County, Lefever/Holbrook natural spring lamb is free of added hormones and are never fed antibiotics. Lefever/Holbrook Ranch focuses on achieving balance that protects the environment, promotes sustainable agriculture, practices humane treatment of food animals and supports the rural family. Ranch owner Paulette Lefever will be at the Club to talk about her 30 years of experience in the food and livestock industry.

Waving Tree Winery is a small, family owned winery down the road from Paulette’s Ranch concentrating on red wines. Their vineyard has the longest growing season of any area east of the mountains. Don’t miss this wonderful evening celebrating Washington’s bounty.

Dinner begins at 6pm. Cost is $50.00 + tax per person

Menu

Sliced Lamb Sirloin Crostini with Caramelized Onions and Fig Relish

Petit Green Salad with Spring Peas, House Made Ricotta and Red Peppers in Vinaigrette

On Thursday afternoon of that last long September weekend before this school year started, some friends and I drove across the mountains to the heart of wine country for Catch the Crush, the yearly celebration of the Washington grape harvest. (The “crush” starts the process of making wine. The business of stepping barefoot into a barrel of grapes?–That’s one way to do a crush.)

On Friday Denise and Diana went off for a warm-up round of golf, so I was on my own. I first set out for the Bookwalter Winery, but they weren’t open yet (why not?–it was already 10:00 in the morning!). So I walked down the road to Barnard Griffin. The person setting up there explained how the Crush wine-tastings work: to sample the wines they’ve opened for the tasting, you pay a small fee (say five dollars), which usually will apply against any wine you buy from them. Or, for I think $30, you can buy a Catch the Crush Premier Pass passport, a booklet that has a page for each of the wineries taking part in the promotion (38 this year!). At each stop, you skip the fee and get a stamp in your booklet. (Was it a good deal? Probably, given the number of wineries we visited, but some of them were waiving the fee anyway.)

Also, as I learned at Barnard Griffin, for about five dollars you can buy a commemorative wine glass from most of the wineries. I went for it! (–And it was only my first one! By Sunday I had accumulated a glass from almost every winery I visited. In fact, as I click away on this post, I have a full one sitting right here on my desk–a nice stemless model from Chandler Reach.)

At any rate, Barnard Griffin gave me my first wine surprise of the trip–their 2010 Tulip riesling. I’m usually wary of rieslings (wouldn”t want to stray into sweet territory!) but I liked this off-dry one best out of their whole tasting lineup. I also learned a little about how to concentrate on the taste and see how it unfolds as you savor it. (The person pouring for me clearly loved the wines, and knew how to help a novice like me appreciate them!)

After Barnard Griffin (nice folks!), I walked back over to Bookwalter. This winery really exercises the “book” motif. The wines have names like “protagonist,” “subplot,” and “foreshadow.” They have a “book club,” and they offer a “library” of wines. I tasted a couple of outstanding reds, especially the 2008 Foreshadow merlot and 2009 Antagonist syrah-cabernet-malbec blend. (But seriously–completely out of commemorative wine glasses, on the first day of the biggest tourist event of the year?) This is where I also heard the first throat-clearings of what would be a trip-long running conversation about AVAs. I already had a sketchy idea about AVAs (American Viticultural Areas), also called appellations, but now I was right in the neighborhood. That 2009 Antagonist?–mostly grapes from the Columbia Valley AVA, with some from Elephant Mountain Vineyards, on the southern slope of Rattlesnake Ridge, in the new appellation of Rattlesnake Hills. Take Highway 82 up toward Zillah–you can’t miss it.

Next, I made my way over to my old friend Hogue Cellars, one of the largest Washington wineries. (Their red label is a staple on grocery store shelves.) These folks make some really good wines! A standout that was new to me was the 2010 Terroir bII, a Bordeaux-style blend of 90% semillon and 10% sauvignon blanc, made from grapes grown on the Fries Vineyard in the Wahluke Slope AVA. (The Fries family owns the Duck Pond and Desert Wind labels, but also, I gather, sells grapes to other winemakers.) I also really liked the 2008 Reserve chardonnay, from grapes grown in the Yakima Valley AVA; they produced only 100 barrels of it that year. (I know this because the enthusiastic young pourer told me so. This and much, much more.) I usually just grab their chard, but I’ll explore a little deeper on the Hogue shelf after this tasting!

Then, after a couple of false starts, I made my way to the Desert Wind Winery. (It’s right there on that hill!–Why can’t I find my turn??) I sensed that lunch was getting important, so I went straight to the winery’s restaurant, Mojave by Picazo. Good choice! I had the blue crab “cigars”–hand-rolled feather-light blue corn tortillas filled with blue crab, served with a tart fresh tomatillo salsa. (Wait, aren’t blue crabs from the Atlantic coast? What a hike to eastern Washington! But I digress.) The side of gargonzola potato salad was spiked with tiny bacon bits and bright with green onions. Tasty! With it, I had a glass of Desert Wind sauvignon blanc (made from grapes grown in the Wahluke Slope appellation in the larger Columbia Valley AVA). And what a dessert!–molten Mexican chocolate lava cake with a lightly salted caramel drizzle. Had to wait for it to cool a bit!–Not easy.

I caught chef Chris Nokes to ask him about the “cigar” filling, which had been riffling some little edge of a food memory. “Think spinach artichoke dip, but without the spinach, crab instead, rolled up in a corn tortilla. Add a touch of parmesan.” Got it! After lunch, I took in their tasting and found two more excellent whites–a slightly oaked 2009 chardonnay and a 2009 semillon.

Sound like a lot of wine?–Remember: in a tasting, you tilt your nose down into your glass and breathe over the little splash of wine at the bottom, then you tip your glass up and moisten your mouth with the wine and breathe again. Maybe you swallow a trickle–then you dump out the rest into a big jar on the counter. This is wine-tasting, not wine-swigging. Which is why I wasn’t sprawled on the gravel out in the parking lot.

But I wasn’t done yet! After my late lunch I met up post-golf with Denise and Diana and we hit four more tastings. Now that I had the two of them to talk to, my note-taking tailed off, but at least I noted our stops: Airfield Estates (another winery working a motif; we tasted wines named Runway, and Aviator, and Lightning); Coyote Canyon Winery, where my pick was the 2010 Albariño, a Spanish grape that Coyote Canyon was apparently the first in Washington to plant, at Coyote Canyon Vineyards in the Horse Heaven Hills AVA; Milbrandt Vineyards, with its own fantastic riesling fragrant with fresh grapefruit; andApex Cellars Winery, where I found maybe my best wine of the day, a beautifully creamy oaked chardonnay. (I tend to choose whites over reds, and this trip was no exception.) Finally, done for the day!

On Saturday, now with reinforcements (friends CJ and John had pulled in on Friday evening), we headed for Red Mountain. The Red Mountain AVA, a triangular wedge just east across the Yakima River from Benton City, is, at 4,000 acres (with only 600 of that in cultivation), the smallest appellation in Washington. Our map showed 14 wineries in the AVA, but we tasted at just two. At the Kiona Vineyards Winery, the tasting stretches out along a couple of intersecting long rooms, each with stations offering several wines. I was taken with a spicy rosé (I believe it was their Mourvédre rosé, though they also have one made from sangiovese grapes; my notes fail me here). I also really surprised myself by loving a late harvest sweet wine! Next we visited Tapteil Vineyards Winery, where the cabernet sauvignon was most interesting to me (also a surprise because of its strong tannin, which I don’t usually go for). The Tapteil tasting room was refreshingly homey and the people were good-humored and helpful.

Then we zoomed back westward to Prosser to take in four more wineries. The three-story stucco villa of Chandler Reach Vineyards whisks you off to Tuscany before you even get in the door, and the wine selections tilt Italian as well, especially their Corella sangiovese blend. But we also tasted a viognier. (Floral; some like it, some don’t. I don’t always, but I did like this one!)

By now, mid-Day Two, I had given up trying to take pictures, and I began to notice a certain truculence in my reactions to the wines I was tasting. I know that we stopped at Hightower Cellars, but my only note, quoted completely, is “cab sauv.” I was already familiar with Kestrel Vintners; I had visited their tasting room a couple of years ago, and had belonged to their wine club for a year after that. They have a great old-vine chardonnay and a very light sauvignon blanc, as well as an array of reds from easy quaffers like Lady in Red to serious high-end merlots and cabernet sauvignons, But by the time we got there, my palate was too exhausted to detect much beyond “red” and “white.” I didn’t write a single note! On the up side, they were serving a cheerful spiced-wine punch that brightened us up considerably. Finally, at our last stop, Mercer Estates, I tasted a 2009 pinot gris that I could rise to “love”–but I can only guess why because I didn’t make a single other comment! And so my wine-tasting shambled to an end.

But now, with the end-of-year holidays finally here, I find myself buying a lot of wine for my friends, and as I reach for this bottle or that, I often let my hand be guided by my memories of these tasting rooms and labels, these helpful people, friendly winery dogs, and lovely golden fields braided with rows of grapevines. Desert Wind, Kestrel, Barnard Griffin, Kiona, Mercer, Apex, Milbrandt. And I still have my slender bottle of First Crush, Kiona’s 2006 Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc, a liquid-gold dessert wine produced from nearly frozen grapes. Maybe I’ll open it this New Year’s Eve to sip with my own attempt at Mexican chocolate lava cake!

On the Sunday of that long weekend, we got up early to make it to the Prosser airport by 6:00 (that’s in the morning) for the Great Prosser Balloon Rally. Look!–They launched a whole blue sky of ornaments! Happy wine tasting, and Happy New Year!

You may recall my post (almost a year ago now!) about Cheese 101, the excellent introduction to world-class cheeses by cheesemonger Sheri LaVigne. Browsing in Sheri’s store The Calf & Kid after class, I picked up Tami Parr’s great book on the Artisan Cheese of the Pacific Northwest and proceeded to munch my way through a big chunk of it. So how could I resist when Sheri offered a second cheese class hosted by Tami herself?

We convened once again at the common table in Sitka & Spruce (Matt Dillon’s very uncommon restaurant in the Melrose Market). Sheri introduced us to Tami and then we settled in to learn about a baker’s dozen of local cheeses. (It had to have been a challenge to select them; since 2000, when the Northwest had just six cheesemakers, the number in Oregon and Washington has grown to 72–and counting!)

We tasted our way around a first plate of eleven cheeses, starting with a fresh chevre from Yarmouth Farms (at high noon in this picture). I’ve mentioned Louise Yarmouth’s French Creek cheese before, but I gather that she now produces only this chevre. [This just in!–Sheri tells me I got it wrong. In fact, Louise also produces bloomy rind cheeses and two or three aged hard cheeses. Better and better!] To make the chevre, she blends the milk from the four breeds that make up her 25-goat herd. It’s an airy fluffy chevre that I liked so well I went back for a little tub of it; I served it on crackers with just a simple herb garnish.

The next two cheeses (at 1:00 and 2:00 on the plate) are Dinah’s Cheese from Kurtwood Farms on Vashon Island and Seastack Cheese from the Mt. Townsend Creamery over in Port Townsend. (Dinah is one of Kurt Timmermeier’s six Jersey cows; I told you earlier about his adventures becoming a farmer. ) Both of these soft-ripened cheeses, made from pasteurized cow’s milk, are buttery, earthy, and aromatic. Not from Seattle?–You can get them in many regional grocery stores that have fine-cheese counters.

The next cheese, an “ashed camembert” from Tieton Creamery in Yakima, was a real find. Made from pasteruized goat and sheep’s milk (Tami tells us that owners Laurie and Ruth mix the milk of their 16 goats and nine sheep), this soft-rind cheese was creamy and rich. I went back to get more of it too, but ended up with a different camembert–also made from goat and sheep milk, but not ashed. This very soft, pungent camembert was lovely but I’m holding out for the one I first tasted; stay tuned!

Dutchman’s Flat, the cheese next on the plate, is a raw goat’s milk cheese made by Juniper Grove Farm in Redmond (no, not that Redmond–this one is in Oregon). I found it a little chalky; Tami says it is very good with fig compote and similar cooked fruit.

On to the firm cheeses. At 6:00 is Mopsey’s Best, a manchego-style cheese made from raw sheep’s milk that had a nice rich, deep flavor. (Maybe because sheep’s milk is 8% fat or more, compared to a meager 4% for cows and goats?) Went out and got more!–It’s great for simple munching.

The next two cheeses, Dulcinea from Larks Meadow in Rexburg, Idaho and Brindisi from Willamette Valley Cheese in Salem, Oregon, were both really nice, but I especially loved the last of this batch, the Classico Reserve made by Tumalo Farms in Bend, Oregon. (The owner, I gather, made his fortune from WebMD and then retired to tend his 300 goats.) Like a Gouda, it is brined, and has a vaguely sweet taste and a firm but creamy texture with a tiny bit of crunch. I couldn’t resist more of this one, either–I served it with just a curl of salami on top.

The final two cheeses on this plate were the blues. (My notes tell me that, to get the characteristic blue marbling of this cheese, the makers pierce the cheese wheel as it ages to enable the mold to grow inside.) The first one, Billy Blue, from Oak Leaf Creamery in Grants Pass, Oregon, is unusual in that it is made from goat’s milk. The second one, Caveman Blue from the Rogue Creamery in Central Point, Oregon, was well-known to me (another well-established producer whose products appear in better-cheese cases in area grocery stores), and still remains a favorite–sweet and pungent at the same time. Get some, if you like blue!

Eleven cheeses!–But we weren’t done. The last two tastes were really desserts made from cheese. The first was Chocolate Goat Chevre Truffle from Briar Rose Creamery in Dundee, Oregon–made with just those ingredients. So good I wanted to throw myself on the floor with it. (But when I went back to get more–say a gallon or so–I learned that the makers have suspended production for a couple of months while they move to a new farm. Trying to be patient here . . .) The second taste was Frangelico from River’s Edge Chevre in Logsden, Oregon–fresh chevre, Frangelico liqueur, roasted hazelnuts, and brown sugar. Also delicious! (but for a chocoholic like me, doomed by coming second).

Get all these cheeses and more from Sheri at The Calf and Kid!–She has an amazing selection, sourced not just locally but internationally, and she and her other staff are knowledgeable and friendly. Not sure?–Ask for a taste; they are happy to help. And be sure to visit Tami’s website, the Pacific Northwest Cheese Project, for cheese recipes, news, profiles, and much, much more!

My friend Anne made a chapbook of vegetarian recipes for her mother’s Christmas present this year, and I was lucky enough to get a copy too! Entirely handcrafted, “from paper cutting and ink mixing to typesetting and the actual printing,” this little chapbook took me back to my first glimpse, in some dimly remembered college course, of the complicated construction of early letterpress books. Preparing the paper and ink, assembling the type into forms for each page and color, making each impression– every single stage calls for huge care and precision.. And no trivial task, either, to get from a flat sheet of paper to a folded booklet! (Try it! Using these pictures as a guide, take a sheet of printer paper, mark off one side into eight sections, and fold yourself a copy of Anne’s book.) Anne tells me that the whole project took more than 100 hours of work.

The project also weaves together threads of the story of Anne and her mother; Anne explains that “while I was living in Korea, my mother sent me a book of vegetarian recipes for Christmas one year that she had written by hand. I still have and use that book, so I wanted to return the favor.” What could make a better gift? The Korean character on the over of the chapbook means “good fortune, luck, or happiness;” Through her craftsmanship, I think Anne has made a little bit of all three–certainly luck for me!

Turning through the booklet, I noticed a recipe for “seitan” and green bean curry. Seitan?–Never heard of it. (At what point will I stop running into new ingredients?) Seitan, it turns out, is seasoned wheat protein–essentially, a very dense reduction of wheat gluten. (Not for everybody, obviously.) Look for it in the same case as tofu. Some people consider it “meat-like;” I bought a version called “chicken-style.” (I used to scoff at vegetarians who ate “pretend meat”–think veggie-burgers–but the more I learn about the costs of diets like my own Texas-size carnivore fare, the more inclined I am to explore alternatives. If a plant food can satisfy a meat craving, so much the better!)

This recipe came from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home, one of numerous excellent cookbooks put out by the famous Moosewood Collective in Ithaca, NY. I went ahead and bought the book, but you can also find the recipe online (for instance in Google Books).

Here’s your list of ingredients:

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 medium onions, finely chopped (~2 cups)

3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

2 teaspoons minced fresh chile, or 1/4 teaspoon cayenne)

4 teaspoons garam masala

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 pound green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces (~3 to 3 1/2 cups)

1 pound seitan, finely chopped

2 1/2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes

2/3 cup coconut milk

3/4 cup water

salt and ground black pepper to taste

toasted unsalted cashew nuts

This dish is essentially a stir-fry; you want to have all these ingredients ready to go, so that you can work rapidly. Heat the oil in a large skillet or wok and add the onions and garlic. Sauté for 2 to 3 minutes before adding the chile or cayenne, garam masala, and cumin. Stirring, sauté for another 2 or 3 minutes. Add the green beans, then the seitan, and mix well. Stir in the tomatoes, coconut milk, and water. Cover and bring to a simmer. Cook, covered, for about 10 minutes, until the beans are firm-tender. Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve topped with toasted cashews for a nice contrast in texture. It came out very nicely! Instead of rice, I cooked farro to go with the curry. Farro (also called emmer) is also a new food for me, although I gather that it is an ancient grain, even collected in the wild by pre-agrarian people as long as 17,000 years ago. My farro, though, was grown by Lentz Spelt Farms from Foundation Seed in arid eastern Washington, in Marlin over by Moses Lake.

This is not a demanding dish to prepare! But as I cooked, I thought about Anne’s mother writing down recipes for her to cook in Korea, and about eighteen hippies in Ithaca, NY forming a collective back in 1973 in to celebrate vegetarian fare, and about Washington farmers carrying forward the life of an ancient grain, and about Anne spending 100 hours crafting her chapbook. And as I serve dinner, I break into a grin: “we made this!”

I never really went for sauerkraut. I love cabbage a dozen ways–steamed, or rolled around a filling and baked in a sauce, or blanketed with cheese, or shredded raw in a slaw or taco filling. But fermented?–No thanks.

Then my friend Bob Rose introduced me to Pleasant Valley Farms organic sauerkraut, made just an hour’s drive north of here in the Skagit Valley. Here’s Bob standing in front of the operation’s fermentation tanks, near La Conner. (Pleasant Valley Farms has a great story of its own, by the way; stay tuned for an upcoming post about it.)

Love this sauerkraut! Tangy cabbage, not lumpy vinegar. Crisp and crunchy, not limp and slimy. Here’s the entire list of ingredients: organic cabbage, organic cabbage juices, water, and salt. That’s it. As it says on the package, “made the old-fashioned way.”

So I can add one more food product to my growing list of those that taste completely different when fresh or prepared authentically. Ever taste canned asparagus?–Don’t. Still shaking Parmesan from the green can?–Stop; buy a block of the real stuff and grate it yourself. And go get some of this great kraut. You can get it at Whole Foods now; look for it in its plastic pouch in the refrigerated case (and store it in your fridge at home).

After my Thanksgiving cook-a-thon (timelines! flowcharts!), I got interested again in the problem of recipes for whole meals, not just single dishes. So here is one way to use this sauerkraut in a very nice dinner for a chilly autumn evening!

Bratwurst with sauerkraut and beets on their own greens

Start about an hour and a half before you want to eat.

Preheat your oven to 425°. Choose beets (leafy tops intact) that are about the same size, so that they will cook evenly. (I used organic red beets from Ralph’s Greenhouse, also from the Skagit Valley!) Cut the greens off your beets (leaving a short stub) but don’t peel the beets or cut off their tails. (I gather that the stubs and tails help keep them from leaking juice during the roasting.) Rub them with a little olive oil, wrap them in aluminum foil, and roast them for about an hour. (When they are done, you will be able to pierce them easily with a sharp knife.)

After you get the beets in the oven, put the beet greens to soak in a bowl (or sink) of cold water. (At this point, you now have about an hour to kill.)

After the beets are roasted (say after you’ve watched the news), put them on a plate to cool and start the bratwurst. Bring a pan of water to a simmer, add the brats, and let them simmer for about 20-25 minutes. (Don’t boil them!–The casing will split open). Turn them over every so often.

After you’ve gotten the brats going, make a vinaigrette for the beets. Mince a clove of garlic, then add a half-teaspoon of kosher salt on top. Smear the garlic and salt around with the side of a knife-blade until you have a paste. Put it in a small bowl and mix it with a half-teaspoon of a nice coarse (country-style) dijon mustard and a tablespoon of good vinegar. (I used a nice sherry vinegar.) Then, whisking like crazy, add three tablespoons of a good olive oil. (I fill a tablespoon with oil, then rest that hand on the rim of the bowl and let the oil drizzle in as I whisk with the other hand. Then repeat twice.) Set the vinaigrette aside for now to let the flavors blend.

Chop about a quarter-cup of walnuts; toast them if you want to in a dry skillet (but watch them like a hawk because they burn easily).

Then, put a steamer-basket in a saucepan, add water up to the bottom of the steamer basket, and bring the water to a boil. While you wait for the water to boil, take the beet greens out of the cold water they’ve been soaking in, trim about an inch off the bottoms of the stems, then cut the stems on the bias into pieces an inch or so long. Cut the leaves across their width into ribbons about an inch wide (in cooking school they tell me this is a chiffonade.)

Close to the end of the wurst’s simmer, heat up a skillet, turn the heat to medium-low, and add a little oil. When the sausage is done, transfer it to the skillet and turn it occasionally as it browns nicely.

While the brat is browning, turn the heat to low under the saucepan with the steamer basket, add the beet stems, and cover the pot. After about five minutes, add the leaves and cover. Cook until the stems are tender and the leaves are wilted but still have nice texture and color. (When are they done? Nibble on a leaf and stem!–Cook them until they are the texture you like. I cooked mine about five more minutes after adding the leaves.)

As the brat continues to brown and the beet greens cook, rub the skins, stem stubs, and tails off your roasted beets. (Just rub them with your hands!–The skin slides right off.) Slice them into rounds and toss the rounds with some of the walnuts and vinaigrette. (Whisk the dressing again if it has separated.) Put the sauerkraut in a microwave-safe bowl and zap it until it is steaming-hot. (Add caraway seeds or dill seeds if you like, but it is great by itself!)

Everything ready? Make two beds on your plate, one of sauerkraut and one of beet greens. Put the bratwurst on the sauerkraut and the dressed beet slices on the greens. Add some of the dijon mustard to the brat if you like. Sprinkle the beets with the rest of the chopped walnuts.

Growing up, one of my favorite breakfasts was Shredded Wheat. Those big woven bricks, floating in milk, with banana coins scattered over them! But when I give in to nostalgia and buy the original product that I grew up with, then tuck into a nice big bowl of it, I’ve been put off by a faint whiff of stale cardboard.

So I kept looking for a worthy replacement! And lately I’ve discovered Cascadian Farm Multi Grain Squares. This is not an elegant or obscure cereal–if you live in the Northwest, you can probably get it at your grocery store. But what a sweet, nutty cereal!–Holds its own in milk, goes great with bananas and berries, has a good shelf life.

This is just one organic cereal from Cascadian Farm in the Skagit Valley north of Seattle. If you follow this blog, you will hear a lot about this region, which is on the same latitude as the Loire Valley in France and is beautifully, lavishly bountiful, thanks to the mindfulness and hard work of its farmers. More on that later!